Authorial Motivations
The earliest autobiographical texts covered in this survey, those from the ninth through the eleventh century, present themselves directly, with little in the way of framing or justification and no overt concern about how the reader will interpret the fact that the author is writing of himself: Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and al-Rāzī write to defend themselves against their critics; al-Muḥāsibī's brief autobiographical passage is of a spiritual nature and located in a larger guide to his followers; al-Tirmidhī wrote to establish his own spiritual status and did not provide any introduction or dedication for his text; the works of Ibn Ḥawshab, Ja‘far al-Ḥājib, and al-Mu’ayyad al-Shīrāzī are all memoirs of Shi‘ite religiopolitical activities of the tenth and eleventh centuries; Ibn al-Haytham, al-Dānī, and Ibn Riḍwān wrote scholarly reports of their lives without framing devices to articulate the authors' aims beyond the overtly historical. Two texts from the eleventh century, by Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Buluggīn, are notable from the point of view of the emergence of autobiography as a literary act.
The autobiography of Ibn Sīnā has been well known among western scholars for quite some time and has been edited and published from several different sources.[19] Although written as a scholarly autobiography, it is more detailed than other contemporary examples of this type.[20] The autobiography focuses on Ibn Sīnā's childhood and youth and ends while he is still a young man. Ibn Sīnā's student, al-Jūzjānī, later continued the text as a biography, providing an account of the remainder of Ibn Sīnā's life.
The appearance of the text in the biographical dictionary ‘Uyūn al-anbā’fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā’ (The Sources of Knowledge about the Generations of Physicians), by Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a (d. 1270), provides an example of how such texts were transmitted during the Middle Ages. The entry on Ibn Sīnā includes a short introduction by the compiler, the text of the autobiography itself, the biography by al-Jūzjānī, a short bibliography of Ibn Sīnā's works, a selection of his poetry, and a bibliographical addendum.
The autobiography proper has come down to us without any formal preface or dedication. In the various medieval biographical compendiums in which it appears, however, compilers prefaced the text in a way that reveals how it was received. Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a, for example, wrote:
He related his experiences and described his life so that everyone else could dispense with his own account. And therefore we have confined ourselves for that reason to what he related about himself and also to those of his experiences described by Abū ‘Ubayd al-Jūzjānī, the companion of the Shaykh.[21]
Al-Qifṭī (d. 1248) included Ibn Sīnā's text in his biographical compendium of scientists and physicians, Ta’rīkh al-ḥukamā’ (History of Scientists), which may have been Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a's source, and prefaced the text with the statement: “One of his pupils asked him about his past, and so he dictated what has been recorded from him to [the pupil], which was that he said . . .” A number of the compilers use the Persian term sar-guzasht (recollections) in presenting the text of the autobiography proper, which may well indicate a lingering sense of ambiguity in that period about what Arabic term should be used to describe such a text.[22]
The remark by Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a that Ibn Sīnā composed his own account of his life so that others would not do so reflects a concern echoed by a number of later writers. For them, the issue was not to write an (auto)biographical text so that such a text would exist but rather to write an account of their lives before others should do so, thus asserting control over the content and presentation of the material and preventing the spread of factual errors. Ibn ‘Ajība (d. 1809), for example, writes that he discovered that his colleagues and pupils were gathering biographical notes about him: “And therefore, fearing that they might allow some addition or omission to slip into their work, I decided to report, with God's assistance, what I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, for that which is transmitted is not that which was actually seen.”[23] Al-Sakhāwī (d. 1497) notes of ‘Abd al-Ghānī al-Maqdisī that a certain Makkī ibn ‘Umar ibn Ni‘ma al-Miṣrī “collected a tarjama of him before he could collect one himself.”[24]
The frame created by al-Qifṭī for Ibn Sīnā's autobiographical text, that of writing in response to a request from someone else, is a common prefatory device found in many genres of writing in the Islamic Middle Ages. Whether the request was real or simply a rhetorical device, this opening was deployed by autobiographers and then reused and transmitted by later compilers of biographical compendiums. Al-Sakhāwī, for example, writes that he wrote “a tarjama of himself in response to those who asked him concerning it [ijābatan li-man sa’alahu fīhā].”[25]
In contrast, the autobiography of ‘Abd Allāh Ibn Buluggīn (d. after 1094) provides explicit, self-conscious justifications for the autobiographical act. In his introduction, Ibn Buluggīn explains that he wishes to portray the truth and that the “intention in this enterprise of mine is not to narrate some entertaining tale [nādiramustaṭrafa] or some strange anecdote [ḥikāya mustaghraba] or an edifying or profitable notion [ma‘nā yu’addī ilā ta’addub wa-intifā‘].”[26] Rather, he declares that he shall eschew fancy language and embellishment and relate the events of his life directly: “I believe that a continuous narrative is better in both form and composition than one which is cut into pieces. I would like, therefore, to write this work in a manner that flows [smoothly] from topic to topic.”[27] Among his motives for writing are “to enumerate the blessings of God and to thank Him as is His due, as God has urged in addressing His Prophet: 'And as for the bounty of your Lord, speak!' [Q 93:11]”[28] and to defend the reign and reputation of his dynasty. These concerns are reiterated in the closing chapter of the work. Perhaps the most striking detail in this passage is that Ibn Buluggīn felt it necessary to justify not the act of recording his life or the history of his family but rather the technique of presenting his work as a coherent narrative instead of as a sequence of carefully substantiated historical anecdotes along with their sources.
The reference here to Qur’ān 93:11 as part of the motivation for writing an autobiography is intriguing. The same verse is quoted in an earlier, well-known work by another Andalusian writer, Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064), Ṭawq al-ḥamāmafi al-ulfa wa-l-ullāf (The Neckring of the Dove on Lovers and Love). In the context of discussing fidelity, Ibn Ḥazm writes: “I do not say what I am about to say in order to boast, but simply relying upon the precept of God Almighty Who says, 'And as for the bounty of your Lord, speak!'”[29] The verse appears to have been deployed as a disclaimer of pride or arrogance when speaking about oneself. Ibn Buluggīn's text provides the earliest-known use of this verse in connection with the writing of an autobiography, but it was later used by a number of Arabic autobiographers in other regions. They could not have picked up this usage from Ibn Buluggīn's autobiography, however, because it did not circulate widely; in fact, it appears to have remained in the original autograph copy of the author or possibly in a single copy made directly from the original. Only one manuscript of the work is extant, that discovered in the library of the Qarawiyyīn Mosque in Fez, Morocco, which was published by E. Lévi-Provençal in the 1930s.[30] Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-Khaṭīb saw the autograph copy of Ibn Buluggīn's work on a visit to Aghmāt, Morocco, where he had been held in captivity. Apart from two other brief references to the work, also by fourteenth-century writers, the book seems to have remained completely unknown, uncited, and unreferred to, until this century.[31]
The next occurrence of Qur’ān 93:11 in an autobiographical text appears to be in Abū Shāma's thirteenth-century work written in Syria, followed by its use nearly two centuries later in the title and preface of al-Suyūṭī's text from Egypt. The use of this verse in three geographically and historically separate instances raises several questions. Are these parallel citations coincidental or related? If the latter, are they related to each other via other autobiographical texts, through Qur’ānic commentaries, or perhaps through other channels such as popular usage of this verse in oral discourse, public sermons, and the like?
The connection between Qur’ān 93:11 and the act of writing an autobiography is not as direct as might appear at first glance. In the context of this particular chapter of the Qur’ān, “The Morning Light ” (Sūrat al-ḍuḥā), the command “And as for the bounty of your Lord, speak!” is addressed to a singular, male interlocutor identifiable as the Prophet Muhammad:
- In the Name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate!
- By the morning light!
- By the darkening night!
- Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does He feel spite.
- The Hereafter is better for you than this [first] life!
- Your Lord will lavish [bounties] on you and you will know delight.
- Did He not find you an orphan, then give you respite?
- Find you unaware, then guide you aright?
- Find you wanting, and then provide?
- So as for the orphan, wrong him not!
- And as for the beseecher, shun him not!
- And as for the bounty of Your Lord, speak![32]
A preliminary study of the major Qur’ānic commentaries only partly answers these questions. Al-Ṭabarī's tenth-century commentary offers only a synonym for the word “speak,” dhakara, meaning “to mention” or “to state.” It is nonmainstream scholars such as the Mu‘tazilites (a theological school that advocated free will, divine justice, and allegorical interpretation of the Qur’ān) and Shi‘ites (who recognized a series of spiritual leaders after the Prophet Muhammad possessing direct inspiration from God) who first concerned themselves with broader issues and questions. In the case of Qur’ān 93:11, one early treatise, that of the Mu‘tazilite al-Qāḍī ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. 1025), extends the message of the verse beyond the immediate addressee, the Prophet, to all Muslims, thereby generalizing the obligation of showing one's gratitude for God's blessings to the entire Islamic community. One century later, the commentator al-Zamakhsharī (d. 1144), also a Mu‘tazilite, not only included this broader interpretation but also supported it with a number of Prophetic traditions. More significantly, his text includes the term iqtidā’, “to take as an example or model,” along with an anecdote involving ‘Alī (fourth caliph of the Islamic community and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad) being asked to speak of himself. When he at first refuses, he is reminded of this Qur’ānic verse and only then agrees.
In most of the major commentaries subsequent to al-Zamakhsharī (with the exception of al-Bayḍāwī's paraphrastic commentary), passages concerning this verse include an ever-larger number of Prophetic traditions in support of the broader interpretation, including examples of members of the Prophet's family speaking of themselves in response to questions and referring directly to the concept of exemplarism. Chronologically, this development roughly parallels the proliferation of autobiographies beginning with the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The large cluster of autobiographies written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by Ibn Ḥajar and his students follows immediately on Ibn Ḥajar's own study of the Prophetic traditions cited in al-Zamakhsharī's commentary. Ibn Ḥajar's student al-Suyūṭī includes in his commentary on the Qur’ān a greater number of ḥadīth concerning this verse than any previous or later commentator; and he himself, as already mentioned, inspired several of his own students to write autobiographies. The increasing number of ḥadīth cited in support of this interpretation of the verse may have been inspired by the proliferation of autobiographical writings, and it is clear that the interpretation of this verse as applicable to all Muslims and all blessings, the concomitant growth of autobiographical writings, and the increased anxiety demonstrated in those texts in the fourteenth to the sixteenth century all reflect broader developments in medieval Islamic society and thought.
From the twelfth to the fourteenth century we encounter autobiographical texts written in a number of different forms: scholarly vitas, spiritual guides, conversion narratives, belletristic works, and historical works in which the author plays the central role. Almost none, however, betrays any misgivings on the part of its author about engaging in the act of writing about himself. One exception is Ibn Sa‘īd al-Maghribī (d. 1286), who wrote: “I excuse myself for this desire to write my own biography [tarjamatī] here with the same excuse used by Ibn al-Imām in [his book] Simṭ al-jumān [The String of Pearls], and the excuse of al-Ḥijārī in his book al-Mushib [The Lengthy Account], and Ibn al-Qaṭṭā‘ [d. 1121] in al-Durra [The Pearl].”[34]
By the end of the fifteenth century, Arabic writers displayed increasing awareness of earlier autobiographical writings. Al-Sakhāwī, writing in 1466, gives a long list of noteworthy Arabic biographies beginning with those of the Prophet in the introduction to his biography of his teacher, Ibn Ḥajar. This list also contains the following references to autobiographies:
- The historian al-Ṣārim Ibrāhīm ibn Duqmāq al-Ḥanafī collected a tarjama of himself [jama‘ahā li-nafsih].
- Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥīm ibn Jamā‘a collected a tarjama of himself.
- Iftikhār al-Dīn Ḥāmid ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Khwārizmī al-Ḥanafī wrote a tarjama of himself in one fascicle [tarjama li-nafsih fī juz’ ].
- Al-Ṣalāḥ Abū al-Ṣafī Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī collected a tarjama of himself.
- I saw a booklet [kurrāsa] in the script of al-Samaw’al ibn Yaḥyā ibn ‘Abbās al-Maghribī, later al-Baghdādī, in which he states the cause for his conversion to Islam, and it is like a tarjama of himself [wa-huwa shibh al-tarjama li-nafsih].
- Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Ṭā’ī. I think he himself wrote it [aִzunnuhā li-nafsih].
- Al-Ḥāfiִz ‘Abd al-Ghanī ibn ‘Abd al-Wāḥid al-Maqdisī . . . Makkī ibn ‘Umar ibn Ni‘ma al-Miṣrī collected a tarjama of him before he could collect one on himself [sabaqahu ilā jam‘ihā li-nafsih].
- Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn Muḥammad al-‘Izz ibn Jamā‘a wrote a fascicle [juz’ ] which he called Ḍaw’ al-shams fīaḥwāl al-nafs [The Light of the Sun on the States of the Self] in which he gave a tarjama of himself [dhakara fīhā tarjamat nafsih].
- The compiler [of the present work], Abū al-Khayr Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī, collected a tarjama of himself in response to those who asked him to do so [ijābatan li-man sa’alahu fīhā].
- Al-Shams Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Khiḍr al-‘Ayzarī al-Dimashqī collected a tarjama of himself.[35]
As we have seen, authors had begun to write autobiographical texts for a wide variety of purposes by the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and these diverse purposes were reflected in the development of a number of innovative forms: political autobiographies (Ibn Buluggīn, Ibn Ḥawshab, al-Ḥājib Ja‘far), belletristic autobiographies (‘Umāra al-Yamanī, Usāma ibn Munqidh), conversion autobiographies (the Jewish convert Samaw’al al-Maghribī and his later counterpart, the Christian convert ‘Abd Allāh al-Turjumān [ = Fray Anselmo Turmeda]). By the late fifteenth century, when Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī was writing his autobiography, the various threads of development had cross-fertilized and influenced one another such that different types of texts and different authorial motivations are difficult to distinguish. Al-Suyūṭī's autobiography touts scholarly and intellectual achievements; in it the traditional elements of the tarjama have been drastically expanded, reframed as a spiritual duty, and then validated by his citation as precedents of three scholarly autobiographies (al-Fārisī, Ibn Ḥajar, Abū Shāma), two political autobiographies (al-Iṣfahānī, Ibn al-Khaṭīb), one belletristic autobiography (‘Umāra), and two texts that have not come down to us (Yāqūt, Abū Ḥayyān). Notably missing from his list is any overtly spiritual autobiography, although he himself had been ceremonially invested as a Sufi.
A half century later when the Sufi shaykh al-Sha‘rānī wrote his autobiography demonstrating spiritual rather than intellectual achievements, he borrowed al-Suyūṭī's list of earlier autobiographers and added four new names (Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Qurashī, Abū al-Rabī‘ al-Mālaqī, Ṣafī al-Dīn ibn Abī al-Manṣūr, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī) and discreetly dropped ‘Umāra al-Yamanī, whom Saladin had crucified for heresy and possibly treason.[36] Al-Sha‘rānī, however, recasts the entire list of writers as religious scholars by including the appropriate religious title—shaykh, imām, or mujtahid—for each. He then discusses his reasons for writing an autobiography both in scholarly terms, also borrowed from al-Suyūṭī, and in mystical terms, taken from the works of his Sufi masters. Finally, he composes the body of his text in a completely idiosyncratic manner by listing separately each blessing he has received from God. Not only were the formal features of the textual tradition flexible, but the entire tradition was liable to differing portrayals; it could equally well be characterized as one of scholarly, textual precedents (al-Suyūṭī) or as one of spiritual predecessors (al-Sha‘rānī).
Autobiographers of the late fifteenth through the nineteenth century, such as al-Sakhāwī, al-Suyūṭī, Ibn Ṭūlūn al-Dimashqī, Ṭāshköprüzāde, al-Sha‘rānī, al-‘Aydarūs, ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al-‘Āmilī, and Ibn ‘Ajība, all demonstrate their familiarity with the Arabic autobiographical tradition in a variety of ways: by including lists of previous autobiographers in the introductions to their works, by incorporating earlier autobiographies into their own historical or ṭabaqāt works, or by borrowing justifications for writing an autobiography from the prefaces of earlier texts.[37] On the whole, beginning in the late fifteenth century, Arabic autobiographers become more and more concerned with the careful framing of their texts, the articulation of their motivations, and defending themselves from potential charges of vanity, falsification, and innovation.